


Conviction

by robocryptid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Trans Akande, Trans Male Character, villains being soft
Language: Español
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:22:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28755846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robocryptid/pseuds/robocryptid
Summary: Gabriel Reyes has been fortunate — and unfortunate — enough to have had four great loves in his life. There's only one he can rely on now.
Relationships: Ana Amari & Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Doomfist: The Successor | Akande Ogundimu/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Mina Liao, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Conviction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theoroark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/gifts).



> Originally started this fic a million years ago, and Bex was so supportive and excited about the first 200 words that I finally managed to add another 2000 for her birthday. As a result, it also has a lot of her headcanons or those developed in conversations with her. Happy birthday, Theoroark! <3

Gabriel Reyes has been fortunate — and unfortunate — enough to have had four great loves in his life. 

The less said about the first, the better. There are a dozen ways to break a heart, and they both managed to do it in at least half those ways. 

It was never romantic with Ana, although he wonders sometimes what his life would be like if it was her instead of Jack. She understood him and his place in things better than anyone else could. She knew what it meant to raise a child into a world that refuses to bend to your will, to do your best and fail until failure might be what defines you. 

She would also disapprove of him putting it that way, even if some part of her agreed. She might sigh impatiently, her wordless scorn more powerful than any diatribe, then offer him some tea. After her “death,” he tried to make his own tea to fill the hole she left inside him. It was never right when he made it, always either over-steeped or too weak, and somehow tasting like ashes most of all. He threw out the whole tin. The brand label still pisses him off when he sees it. 

She’s alive though, a miracle and a curse. Even if she’s the enemy now, the world is better with her in it. It doesn’t mean he can stand to see her or, more to the point, can stand for her to see him.

Mina understood him too. She understood Jack and Ana. She understood the work. She knew what drove him and she pushed him to do better,  _ be  _ better, but when they didn’t see eye to eye, she sought more understanding, and she sought for him to understand her. No more bashing his head against a wall; she was like opening a door. 

He loved her so desperately that he married her, certain it would give his life some stability. 

It’s no surprise everything went to shit after Ana and Mina were gone. There was no one left to balance him, no one left to rein Jack in — no one left with a vision of what Overwatch should be that wasn’t tainted by pride or ambition or grief. 

Akande has a clear vision, and a clarity of purpose too. There is no power struggle here. There are disagreements, yes, but he sees the world as it is and the image in which it could be remade. His certainty may be the most powerful thing about him.

Gabe isn’t so certain. He understands his role, and he understands his anger. He knows who he is better than he ever did with Overwatch. But familiar faces on the opposite end of a battlefield will always raise doubts within him.

It isn’t a thing a person can grow used to, even when it is what he expects to see. Wilhelm and Lindholm are predictable. Oxton and the monkey are too. Shimada and McCree and Ziegler are perhaps less obvious after everything, but it isn’t so surprising that he is shaken by it, not the way he was when he encountered Ana and Jack. 

It’s the omnic that sets him off.

Most omnics stick with metallics. Chrome plating is the popular choice. He’s seen others in everything from brass to platinum, but this one… She gleams a brilliant, sterile white, with the sleek curves of a high end sports car. She shouldn’t be here. The last Gabe saw her, she was locked in her pod for good, forced into retirement when they shut Mina’s program down after the attack.

Her face is a blue holo projection, not the smooth brown of Mina’s, and yet the features aren’t so different that he can’t see her there, the faint traces of her maker left behind to haunt him. In an instant, he can see it all again: Mina laughing with the omnic, half-built with her metal skeleton still visible; McCree flirting harmlessly with Gabe’s wife and the omnic alike, the closest to good behavior he’s ever gotten because he knows Gabe can’t trust just anyone with this job, would do it himself if there weren’t a thousand demands pulling him away; McCree bleeding and tear-stained, babbling an apology Gabe can’t hear and won’t understand until it’s too late, until he has Mina in his arms, except that he can’t, he can’t, because there’s nothing left of her to hold, but that goddamned omnic is still there, safe in her pod without a scratch.

Mist floats off him, and he’s trembling. Rage, grief, panic — he isn’t sure what it is, but he’s shaking like a leaf. He tries to stabilize, tries to concentrate, tries not to laugh at how literal it is that he can’t hold himself together. The omnic sees him, of course she does, but she doesn’t know who he is behind the mask. The only thing she knows is the Reaper. She raises an arm, the one he knows is a weapon too, and he surrenders, lets his body dissolve entirely.

Akande finds him later, cleaning the shotguns he never fired. Gabe is himself enough now that he can feel his heart thudding in his chest. His throat still feels tight. His grip on his weapon is too hard for a routine cleaning. 

Akande sits uninvited. This is how Gabe knows he never had military training: he sits across from a man cleaning his weapons, as if there is not a chance they could still go off. Maybe it’s faith in his competence, but Gabe would never do the same in his shoes.

Fearless. Not that he has anything to fear from Gabe, but still. 

Akande watches, hands folded in front of him as if this is a board meeting. “You said your former associates would not be a problem,” he says like he’s observing the weather.

It’s a work conversation, then. That’s easier. “They aren’t.”

“It amazes me that you headed Blackwatch. That was a terrible lie.” His mouth twitches wryly.

“They won’t be,” Gabe says more convincingly. Akande could —  _ should  _ — push here, but he simply watches Gabe work. It is more persuasive than any argument he could make. Gabe sighs, and he has to stop in order to hide that his hands want to shake. He has to concentrate to keep his fingers from turning to mist.. “The omnic… I was surprised. Next time, I won’t be.”

“Presumably you don’t mean the monk.” Gabe catches himself almost smiling as he shakes his head; as if he could be so rattled by that. “So I must assume you mean Echo.” Gabe flinches. “A sophisticated prototype unit designed and built by Dr.—”

“Don’t,” Gabe snaps. One of Akande’s eyebrows shoots high, and Gabe instantly regrets it. “Sorry. I don’t want to talk about her. Not with you.”

Akande nods slowly, although it is clear he isn’t wholly pleased. “Not with your boss, or not with—” He cuts himself off when Gabe flinches again. “I see. Well. I can’t force you to talk, but I recommend you find some outlet for this.”

“That an order?” Gabe tries to make it a joke. 

Akande’s eyes are heavy when he says, “No.”

Gabe finishes cleaning his guns alone. 

There is no one here he can have that sort of talk with. He respects his coworkers, but trust is not something he’s ever come by easily. Besides, whatever trust he’s built with some of them, it isn’t the sort that facilitates many heart-to-hearts. He thinks he met his quota for the year after Giza. 

The gym is suspiciously empty when he arrives. A sixth sense tells him it isn’t an accident. They aren’t all big talkers, but they have ways of showing their respect. Sombra or Akande, maybe even Widow — someone has made space for him. 

The weights don’t do enough. He wraps his hands and takes on the heavy bag. There, at least, he can lose himself in the rhythm, try to let the ache in his knuckles burn away the morbid thoughts. 

They creep in at the edges anyway. Ana would know what to say to knock his head on straight. Jack would try, and the trying would be just enough to fuck Gabe up inside, make him feel too soft all over again. One of them would ruin it right after, but still. Jack would try.

It doesn’t help as much as he needs. He builds up a sweat, but he never gets to the empty headspace he’s after, not even once his knuckles have begun to throb. 

Akande’s in the penthouse when Gabe arrives, sweaty and disheveled. He looks up from the sofa, and bland as can be, he says, “You wrapped poorly.” 

He’s right, of course. He would know even at a glance. Gabe’s knuckles and wrists are aching more than they should. They’re mending themselves faster than they should too though. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll heal.”

“It matters if you’re reckless. If you’re hurting yourself.” Gabe knows how sullen he must look, tacky with dried sweat and worn down from the demons he couldn’t banish, and now defiant in the face of his boyfriend’s concern. Akande’s voice is gentler than it should be when he says, “It matters to  _ me,  _ even if you don’t care.”

Gabe shakes it off. “I’ll do it better next time.” It’s an easy concession, but he’s not unaware it sounds like everything else he’s promised Akande today.  _ Next time _ is going to wear out soon if he’s not careful. 

Akande doesn’t point any of this out. He doesn’t have to. He only goes back to reading his book. 

The shower is ridiculous. Gabe’s thought so since the first time he stayed the night. He thinks it all the time even now that he lives here. He likes to complain about the complexity, how stupid it is to have so many streams hitting him at once, how funny it feels that the overhead spray is so high up. Seems like a lot of waste, a bunch of nonsense bells and whistles for a straightforward activity, but nights like tonight, he gets it. 

Akande’s in the bed by the time he finishes up, shirtless and one-handed now. Nestled in the soft bedding, thin glasses perched on his nose, with a real paper book in his lap — most people wouldn’t recognize the mighty Doomfist like this. Gabe almost catches himself off guard with his own smile. 

Something inside him loosens its grip. “Mina would have hated what we do,” Gabe says. 

Maybe he should have given some warning, but Akande only marks his page and shuts the book. “Many of your former associates hate what we do.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But she was your wife.”

“Yeah.”

“And you are only considering this now?”

“No.” The rueful laugh feels like it too is shaking something loose. “No, but Echo…” It feels strange to name the omnic, as if it makes her more real. “She’s Mina’s life’s work. She poured every part of herself into that project. Maybe if she’d lived, it’d just be one milestone, but instead Echo’s the… the main thing, I guess.”

“Not unlike your son, I imagine.”

Gabe doesn’t flinch this time, but he doesn’t want to revisit that conversation either. “If she’d written a book or something, that would be… I could close it. I wouldn’t have to talk to it. Look it in the eye. Hear it speak.”

“You hesitate to destroy something so precious to someone you loved.” 

Gabe nods. The talk is easier than he made it out to be in his head, but he doesn’t want to go deeper than that. It’s aired. It’s enough for now. “Funny, talking to you about this.”

Akande chuckles. “I am not threatened by a memory, Gabriel.” Of course he understands this too. He has lost people in so many ways; they all have. “I only hope there is room for us both.”

Gabe feels like an empty vessel sometimes, hollowed out. Right now that feeling is lighter than usual, but it’s always there. Always room for something more inside him. “There is,” he answers, with far more conviction than any of his  _ next times. _

“Then come to bed. I’m tired of looking up at you. I’m not used to it.” There’s a faint smile on Akande’s mouth, and it feels only natural to kiss it. 

He loses the sweatpants and the underwear as quickly as he slipped them on, and he slides beneath the sheets to find Akande nude beneath, as if he knew how this was going to end. Maybe Gabe’s growing predictable, or maybe Akande just knows him well enough now, knows Gabe’s rhythms and movements like the back of his hand. It’s a scary thought — predictability won’t help him survive — but tonight was only hard because Gabe made it that way. Akande made it easy. 

It’s easy to decide how to repay him too, and to apologize for earlier, easy to kiss his way down Akande’s scarred chest and slip between his thighs, tongue dragging softly over hot skin. Thick fingers tighten in the dark curls above Gabe’s nape, too short to get a grip on. Losing himself between Akande’s thighs is another way to get out of his head. It feels better than the punching bag or the shower. It’s almost better than the talking, but the lightness in his limbs wouldn’t be possible without that. 

They will probably have to talk more. Gabe wouldn’t put it past him to bring it up again, with some space and some time. Echo is still a problem to be solved, but he’s been reminded of the one person he can trust to help solve it. 


End file.
